September 2012

The big news for September?  Justin started kindergarten!  It is only a half day program here in Idaho so we still get plenty of time with him at home.  Ryan misses him, but the mornings go by pretty quickly.  Here he is on the first day of school.

Ryan does enjoy some alone time with Mommy.  Here he is riding around the block while I run beside him.  There are quite a few ups and downs that I don't really notice when I walk.  Somehow they are much more noticeable when I am pulling him along or slowing him down.

The boys both got the chance to play soccer.  Ryan did pretty well.  Unfortunately, when other kids would start to have separation anxiety he would join in.

Justin with the ball!  He has two practices a week plus games.  It gets old fast for me, but hey.

This playground is quite close to my parents' house.  Ryan and I spent an entire morning here while Justin was in school one morning.  Ryan loved it, but of course Justin was jealous when he found out.  We even got to see fire fighters practicing with their hoses.  One came over and gave us some stickers.

Of course why play on the playground when you can walk on rocks?  My boys can always find something to do.

I said it was too cold to go swimming, but that doesn't stop us from getting wet.

The boys take a rest at a table along the world's longest boardwalk.

Ryan was "helping" my mom to clean things.  He decided that his job involved filling up things with water and pouring the water somewhere else.  Many containers were filled, including his shoes.  It is amazing how much fun kids can have with water.

Justin got to help my dad stain the ladder.  He had so much fun with the project.  The quality of his work was questionable, but his method was quite entertaining.  I don't know if anyone has ever danced around so much painting a ladder.

The marbles were left out on the floor and Justin couldn't resist sorting them.  Ice cube trays are so much for for a lot of different things.

Leaves colored Fall colors and sequenced from largest to smallest.  Ryan's cutting isn't exactly on the lines yet, but that's okay.

The boys had so much fun this month with Tinkertoys.  They even enjoyed playing bird family with the big red plastic part stuck on a stick making up a bird.  There were various family members, but usually a Little Sis.  They boys made all sorts of swings, beds, forts, boats, and more for Little Sis.

August 2012

     Here is what I just found (Oct 7) as my August draft.  I guess I will just post about the pics I have here rather than get further behind assuming I will catch up sometime.

     We arrived in Idaho the first of the month and enjoyed a lot of time just hanging out, watching TV, and enjoying the summer with Grandma and Papa. :)

 

Liquid watercolors on paper and large coffee filter.  The boys had a lot of fun.  They especially enjoyed having glitter in it.

We went to pick peaches at an orchard in Washington.  The peaches were absolutely delicious!  I couldn't believe how many the boys would try to eat.  Mean ole Mom limited them somewhat.

Cousins came to visit from Oregon!  That was the highlight of the month.  Here are Soup and Ryan on a swing at Fernan Elementary School on the playground.

The kids had a blast at the beach.  They swam, they ate, they played in the sand, they splashed...  Here Ryan is looking a bit like a beached whale up on his float while Justin works in the sand.

June Happenings!

In addition to selling things, donating things, or throwing them away we have done a few activities this month. :)  The boys are still VERY much into Super Mario Brothers and like to watch people play it on the wii, play it on the wii themselves, play with their Mario figures, watch Mario videos, hear Mario bedtime stories...

We made our own liquid watercolor using markers that were too dried out to use as markers anymore.  I got the idea from this blog: http://mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com/2011/04/liquid-watercolors.html

Here are pictures we made using the blue liquid watercolor.  We sprayed it from a spray bottle onto paper and then used green glitter glue for seaweed and sea shapes macaroni (THANKS, ALICIA!) to make an ocean picture.  It is not gorgeous, but they had fun. 

We went to the earth science (or whatever they call it) museum.

Dino from the earth science museum.  This is actually one of the most museum looking museums in Windhoek. It was a pleasant surprise. :)

Duplo legos!  We aren't taking them with us to Armenia so we got a lot of good play time with them before we sold them.  We are moving on to the "big kid" legos. :)

Justin has developed a love for Scrabble.  He plays it his own way, basically just creating a crossword of words.  He is very excited about the point aspect as well.  Good for practicing spelling AND math skills.

Magnets!  Cut up pipe cleaners and magnet wands.  They loved scattering them and cleaning them up again.

Playing with trains is fun too.  Somehow they managed to incorporate their Mario figures and dinosaurs into the trains as well.

Went to what my boys call the "Gingerbread Church" to take a picture.  This is a major Windhoek landmark and we were doing a Flat Stanley project for a friend of mine.

Practicing right and left with Twister.

Also practicing our balance skills with Twister.

Aren't we attractive?  We played Ring a Round the Nosey.

Pick up the rings with your trunks.



We made funny cloud pictures after reading "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" together.

June 19th was probably the coldest day of the year, but we had fun playing at the playground with our friend Leah.

And, of course, eating with Leah was good too.  Any wonder why Ryan outweighs his older brother?



Justin is having a great time on the trampoline.

Ryan loves the slide.

May 2012

Where has the time gone?  We are almost halfway through June so I suppose it is time to post May's happenings.

Rob and I went to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and left the boys behind.  They had a wonderful time on their first sleepover at someone's house WITHOUT Mommy or Daddy there.  They missed us a little, but are still talking about how much fun it was.  Over a month after the trip they still have no idea where Rob and I were.  They assume we just sat around bored I guess.

We made pictures with lemons.  I put paper in shallow boxes and then put globs of paint on the paper.  The boys rolled the lemons around and created the designs you see here.

Justin loves cutting up paper and gluing it.  This is one of many creations he has made.   I would love a project that looks cute or at least looks like something, but I guess if I don't let him do his own thing he isn't expressing his creativity.

We read the book One Drowsy Dragon and looked for all of the words that described how that poor drowsy dragon was feeling.

We filled an inflatable bouncer with blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals.  A perfect little nest for the boys to play in.  They thought it was a great place to curl up and watch TV too.

We went to the Farmer's Market and the boys played with some friends on the school playground.

Ryan walking up the steps to the art museum.

Justin on his way up to the art museum.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum.

We put some paper in the window to see how the sunlight would fade it.  The red didn't fade nearly as much as the dark blue did.  We did this because they didn't understand in a book we read why Amelia Bedilia had to draw the drapes.

We did One, Two, Buckle My Shoe and practiced counting and writing our numbers.

Nice stairs at the Alte Feste Museum, huh?  Going up wasn't so bad, but I was a bit worried about the boys on the way down. 

The boys running around on the front steps by Alte Feste Museum.  I realize now that there wasn't anything inside the museum that I wanted to take a picture of.  Hard to get a good picture of the boys with the sun's location, but they wanted one.

Statue in front of Alte Feste Museum.

I found some kindergarten math vocabulary cards from my teaching days.  Ryan and Justin enjoyed going through them.  They know quite a few of them.

I have no idea, but he loves it.

We also spent a lot of time this month getting ready for the second big yard sale held by the Embassy.  Great timing since we will be moving soon.